A securities rule change put in place last year allows companies with less than $1 billion in yearly revenue to file initial IPO paperwork confidentially. The advantage for companies is they can keep their financial results secret until they are closer to pitching their stock to investors.

Some startup advisers say the confidential IPO option is making some young companies more willing to accelerate IPO plans.

The statute in question is the Jumpstart Our Business Startups, or the JOBS Act, that President Obama signed into law on April 5. Among other things, it allows so-called emerging growth companies – startups with less than a $1 billion in annual revenues – to file secret S-1 statements with the SEC. The documents do not show up in any database and even the fact that a particular company has filed a confidential registration statement remains a state secret unless the startup chooses to reveal plans to go public, as Silicon Valley solar installer SolarCity recently did in a brief press release.

These black-box registration documents do have to be made public 21 days before executives begin a road show to pitch their IPO to big investors and analysts. But if they get cold feet and pull a planned offering before the road show, the filings remain confidential and no one will be the wiser.